Early in the morning we drive up to the Russian-Kazakh border. Narrow road with rammed snow twists among fields with stunted vegetation. The day has just begun but we’ve already seen several cars lost control on the ice and fell off into the ditch. It’s frosty and poor fellows have to keep warm by jumping and running while waiting for help.
We pass the border simply and easily. Passport control, customs and here we are on the territory of Kazakhstan. And if the Russian side of the landscape was at least diluted with some vegetation, then the vast deserted steppes are cut only by the masts of the power line. The picture is so dull, that you can’t help falling asleep looking out the window.
By lunchtime we reach the Urals, where we are to visit a local dealer. To go further we needed to change our winter tires into studded option. We expected to spend a maximum of one and a half hours at the dealer centre, but the process drags on until the evening. It turns out that quick change of tires on the way happens to be a real problem. But, thanks to the employees of the company who coped with a task at the highest level, we managed to move on.
That’s the second day in a row when we experience problems when refueling the car. The fact that the watering can of guns on diesel refueling is too small for our car. Touareg has protection from accidental refueling with gasoline and therefore this option is not suitable for us. Yesterday we were forced to look for a suitable gas station, which was not very easy. Today we manage to solve this problem by buying a filling funnel with a special adapter.
There is another problem with gas stations. The fact is that in Kazakhstan, the fuel is not of the highest quality and even if you refuel with winter diesel fuel there is always a chance that it may freeze, and this is a big problem for us. Now during every refueling we add a special non-frost liquid to our tank.